Harare Mayor, Jacob Mafume has said some of the local government authority’s projects stalled due to delays by the central government to disburse the money allocated through the intergovernmental fiscal transfers popularly referred to as the devolution funds.
Addressing a budget consultative meeting at Town House, Mafume called for the full implementation of devolution to ensure that local government authorities have access to devolution funds in time to enable them to provide service delivery.
He said the money which Council is receiving from Government’s devolution funds and ZINARA is not enough. He said:
As we prepare the budget, we are advised of our allocation in terms of the intergovernmental fiscal transfers popularly as the devolution funds.
For the year 2022 we were allocated ZWL$2,3 billion and so far we have received ZWL$165 million which was predominantly for the Water, Sanitation and Health (WASH) and Roads programmes.
This means all projects that were supposed to be funded using the IGFT cannot be completed. It is now pertinent that the requisite policy, regulatory and institutional frameworks necessary to fully operationalize and entrench the implementation of devolution agenda are put in place so that we can access our allocation fully.
Mafume says ZINARA failed to allocate the council ZWL$825 million for the roads programme and only managed ZWL$248.7 million which is a quarter of the budgeted funds.
He said Harare’s infrastructure has a backlog of over 20 years and the area can be a huge opportunity for investors and or the private sector.
Mafume added that dependence on rates for infrastructure development was not ideal.